xp_logs | Remy and Nathan, Thursday night

On his way out of the boathouse after visiting Cain, Nathan runs into Remy. The two of them have their first conversation since Vegas, and Nathan finds out why Remy's been basically AWOL since.

After a brief if highly amusing visit with Cain - well, amusing for Cain, at least; Miles had apparently been telling tales, and there had been some mockery about a Certain Incident in cooking class - Nathan let himself back out of the boathouse, closing the door quietly behind him.

It was late, and one of those very clear, very cold nights. Nathan shivered a little as he started down the steps - and stopped, peering into the darkness of the trees. "Remy?" There was only really one person at the mansion who registered that oddly on the telepathic level.

Remy sighed and wiped his hand across his face, the stubble making a rasping sound in the night. Of all of the people to run into, he'd get the one with the telepathic radar.

"Oui." LeBeau stepped out of the shadows between the trees, hands stuffed in the pockets of his trenchcoat. He'd been good at avoiding the staff and students over the holidays, slipping unseen and to Kuk's annoyance, undetected off the mansion for hours, sometimes days.

Nathan raised an eyebrow. Even in the moonlight, LeBeau looked moderately awful. "Did you get the number of the truck?" he inquired.

"Non. Too busy being crushed." Remy said dryly as he walked down to the patio. "Been in to see de mansion's biggest speed bump?"

"Yes. Amazing how fast his ability to be a smartass came back," Nathan said with a brief, fond smile that faded quickly as Remy got closer. "Didn't see much of you after Vegas," he said, then shook his head. "Of course, the fact that I got back here and promptly blinded myself for the rest of the month didn't help, but I got the impression that no one saw much of you."

"Dere been t'ings to do." Remy answered, and Nathan didn't need any telepathy to know he was lying. "sides, wit everyone going everywhere for de holidays, not a lot of people here to see anyone."

"Oh, bullshit." Nathan gazed at him for a long moment. "You have the look of a man who got kicked over the precipice and isn't sure if he wants to start climbing back out yet. I've seen it in the mirror often enough to know."

"Glad you de new shrink here, Nate." Remy lit a cigarette, stalling as he drew deeply on it. "Dis de part dat Remy lies down and you ask me about my maman?" He smirked.

"Trust me, I have no desire to hear about your mother." Nathan moved so that he was upwind from the cigarette. "And you'll have to forgive me if I occasionally sound shrink-like. Seeing mine twice a week since June has left me with some very nasty conversational habits."

"Seems like." Remy blew a smoke ring out over the water. "Guess dat means you not likely to start killing de Professor again."

"I think that was one of those one-time things, yeah. 'Sorry, but I was brainwashed' doesn't really work as an excuse more than once." Nathan snorted, leaning against the railing and staring out at the lake.

"No, not much of an excuse at all." Remy trailed off, joining Nate at the railing. He'd spent most of his time after the incident here, as if the lake held some answers. It never seemed to. "How's dat wife of yours? De fils alright?"

"The baby's fine. Moira's... doing better," Nathan said after a moment. "I don't know if you heard that we had some... excitement at New Year's." He shook his head, as if he could shake it off. Not going there, he told himself. The situation was as settled as it was getting - Pete had driven that home, at least. "It's helping her to be back in her normal routine."

"Heard. No such thing as a vacation." Remy smirked, taking another draw from his cigarette. "Next year, Remy make sure to put out de landmines for Santa, non?"

"Landmines... there's a thought." So this was what, three different attempts at conversational distraction... "So, apart from being antisocial, what have you been up to while the rest of us were away celebrating the holidays or playing with reality-warpers?"

"Around." Remy didn't look away from the lake, watching the lights play on the water. "Just been around. Don't have classes or de leather duties to worry about."

"No classes, no leather duties... nothing but time to think?" Nathan paused, looking over at him. "No wonder you look like crap."

Remy took a deep breath through his nose, flicking the cigarette into the water. "Dats de half of it, homme. De half and de rest."

"So what's the other half?"

"'bout three foot and change." Remy muttered, suddenly desperately wishing one of them wasn't here right now.

Nathan looked away, closing his eyes for a moment as the stray thought he'd caught from Remy - Remy, projecting - sank in and his mind made the connection. "Shit," he sighed, closing his eyes. "When did you find out?"

Remy scrubbed his hands through his hair, his hands constantly fidgeting. He settled on another cigarette, lighting it with his powers and taking a long time to draw on it before he spoke.

"Just after I got back." He shook his head. "Dat was, what, month ago?"

Nathan was silent for a long moment, his fingers tapping restlessly on the railing. "What are you thinking?" he asked finally.

"To be honest, homme, thinking is de last thing dat Remy trying to do right now." The man seemed to slump a bit, looking over the lake.

"Unfortunately, that doesn't work forever. Eventually, you do enough thinking and your liver gives up the ghost. Or so I've been told."

"Maybe. But de alternatives get fatal a lot faster, Nate." Remy took another drag, hunching in his trenchcoat. He knew Nathan was trying to help, but it wasn't working. While both of them had been tools, trained and conditioned, Nathan had had years to come to grips with his past. Remy had only a few months, and the memories ached like a rotted tooth.

"What you need is time," Nathan said and then shook his head. "Sorry. That sounds so facile, but you must know what I mean." He laughed a bit hollowly. "This is a fishbowl, this place. Processing time's been in short supply for anything, the last several months... let alone the kind of shit you're dealing with."

He turned back to the lake, shaking his head again. "If it's any consolation, you're doing better than I awas. The only reason I made it through my first three months out of Mistra is that I was on a homicidal rampage slaughtering my former colleagues."

"Sounds like you know how to throw a party, homme." Remy quipped. "But it's not much of one. Dere's so much I don't know how to do. Merde, who to be... I mean, if dat Magneto showed up on de lawn right now, my first instinct would be to take him all de way out. Dat mean everything leads back to who I was, Nate?"

"You're not going to like my answer." Nathan stared at the water fixedly. "Because it does. It always does. Even if, or when, you find new ways to do things, to react, you never forget the old." He laughed again, perhaps a touch more amusement in the sound this time. "You mentioned the leather duties a few minutes ago. I've been training for six months, and my first impulse when someone comes at me with violent intent is still to explode their internal organs telekinetically. Even after all the hours upon hours I've sat and listened to Scott talk about non-lethal takedown measures..."

"Not exactly a hopeful promise, homme. Got a killer in me, and not a lot else to balance it out." Remy shook his head. "De only thing I can think to look forward to is doing something worth while in dis place before I get buried. Not much of a future dere."

Nathan thought about Cain's metaphor about the cup and the rain, and the conversation they'd had not far from this very spot. He'd been two days - or three? - back from Belgium, the memory of all those small bodies in the Mistra safehouse still burned on the inside of his eyelids.

"People," he said finally, very quietly. "People save you. If you let them. You can't do it yourself. Because there is no way people like us can convince ourselves that we're worth anything as human beings unless we see that other people believe it."

Remy smirked, shaking his head. "Seeing de way I've made friends here, dat could be a problem, homme. But I'll think about it."

"Oh, don't give me that. Look at Jubilee - although I am going to kick your ass if you insist on hooking her on those damned cigarettes. Or Clarice, bringing you cookies." Nathan looked sideways at him. "Or Angie, who was ready to castrate you when you came back - look what you did for her, despite that. And Cain... well, Cain doesn't like anyone, yet he hasn't kicked you out of his house yet, has he?"

He paused for a long moment. "Fuck," he muttered. "And I know I was giving you a good old passive-aggressive time in Vegas, but that had a lot more to do with me than you. Maybe looking at you is a little too much like looking into a slightly time-lapsed mirror or something.. but it wasn't fair. I'd like to do better," he said, meeting Remy's eyes as levelly as he could. "Consider it a standing offer, and hey, feel free to laugh in my face for it now, if you want. I would be tempted, in your place."

"Not ready to do much laughing dis days, Nate. I appreciate de thought though." Remy pitched his cigarette out into the lake and scrubbed his face with his hands tiredly. "I feel like God wiped his ass wit' my brain. Think I might go inside, try and sleep a bit."

"Probably a good idea." Nathan smiled a bit. "I'd offer you Doctor Dayspring's Dreamless Sleep remedy, but I'm still refining that particular telepathic trick. And I somehow doubt it would work on you anyway." He shook his head wryly, turning away from the railing. "I haven't managed to get it work on myself, either."

"Fortunately, Remy got a bottle of Doctor Daniel's Dreamless Sleep remedy in de boathouse. Think dat I'll either drink it or just club myself to sleep wit de bottle." Remy grinned crookedly and opened the door. "Bonsoir, Nate. And thanks."

"If it comes to clubbing, you could always ask Cain to do it for you. Consider it advancing his recovery," Nathan said over his shoulder as he started down the steps. "Night."